Video podcasts are worth having when you already have them. For everyone else, the debate is mostly a distraction from making the show.
The podcasting discourse has settled on a new obsession: video versus audio. Podcast coaches are posting about it, thought leaders are weighing in, and podcasters who podcast about podcasting are podcasting about it. I'm aware of the irony of adding to the pile, but I have some steam to let off.
Yes, it's genuinely useful that Apple Podcasts and other apps now let listeners toggle between video and audio within the same feed. Before this, you had to pick a lane and stay in it. If you wanted to switch from watching to listening, you'd lose your place and have to hunt for it in a separate feed. The new approach is cleaner in principle, though I can't speak to how seamlessly it actually works when you're, say, driving and then get out and start walking. And yes, YouTube and Spotify have been doing the video talk-show thing for a while, so podcasting adding this capability is partly about staying in the same conversation when advertising dollars and big-audience economics are involved.
That's all fine. What frustrates me is what happens downstream of all this attention: podcasters with 5,000 downloads, 100 downloads, or in the case of this show, roughly five downloads, suddenly worried that they need video or their show will become irrelevant.
Video adds so much complexity and so much heaviness to the editing process, the publishing process, the sharing process.
The answer to "do I need video to survive?" is no, you don't. This show could exist just fine as audio only and nothing fundamental would change about it. Video is a nice addition when it comes easily, but it is not a requirement for a small or mid-sized podcast to keep going.
If you're already recording in something like Riverside where video is happening anyway, and everyone on the call is comfortable on camera, then sure, use the footage. Post clips to Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts. That can genuinely help people stumble across your show who would never find it through a podcast directory alone.
Use video for clips and promotion when you already have it. Don't build a production around it just because everyone else seems to be.
But if your guests and co-hosts aren't used to being on camera, or you don't already have a recording setup that produces video, there's no reason to bolt that complexity onto your workflow right now.
The smarter move is to treat video like any other feature you think you might need: a discussion forum, a Patreon tier, a newsletter companion. Add it when there's demand for it, not before. When multiple listeners start asking whether there's a video version, or whether you'd ever put it on YouTube, that's a signal worth acting on. Until then, you're solving a problem nobody in your audience has raised.
"Wait until you have five, ten, whatever multiple of listeners...start saying, hey, is there a video version of the show somewhere?"
The video-or-audio debate is real at the scale where shows have hundreds of thousands of listeners and ad revenue to protect. At every other scale, it's mostly a distraction. The time spent worrying about whether you need video is time you could spend just making your show.
So make your show.
